Forward-looking: The Coalition—the studio behind the Gears of Wars games since Microsoft bought the franchise from Epic Games in 2014—has announced it is winding down work on Gears 5 as it focuses resources on the next entry in the series, which will use Unreal Engine 5. The company has also denied recent rumors that it is working on a new Star Wars game.

The Coalition announced that moving to the new engine is a huge undertaking. As such, it "will not be announcing any new projects or titles for some time."

Gears of War 1 – 3, developed by Epic Games, all use Unreal Engine 3, while The Coalition-developed Gears of War 4, Gears 5, and Gears Tactics are powered by Unreal Engine 4.

"Gears of War has always been at the front of Unreal Engine development–as a breakout 720p title for Xbox 360 through last year's 120FPS multiplayer update for Xbox Series X|S–and we're excited to continue that tradition by developing on UE5 for multiple new projects in the coming years," the company writes.

More content for Gears 5 will be released, including Operations 7 and 8, each containing two drops featuring new characters, new maps, and special events. There will also be new store updates through the end of the year.

The Unreal Engine 5 is set to launch later in 2021. Based on the PS5 tech demo , we can expect Gears 6, or whatever it's called, to look pretty spectacular.

Elsewhere, the Gears of War community manager TC Kilo refuted rumors that The Coalition was working on a new Star Wars game. "Just to clarify regarding the Star Wars thing," they wrote on Reddit . "We are not working on any such title. We have nothing else to announce at this time."